Operation: Manhunt

You can run, but don't bother trying to hide.

Never mind how secluded the island, tiny the town or bustling the metropolis you choose to lay low in. Chances are good that Joseph Culligan can find you.

"First of all, every single person in the world can be found, living or dead," Culligan says. "Very seldom does anybody ever pack up completely and never say a word to anybody ... or stay in touch."

The private investigator based in Miami Beach has found countless people, including the daughter comedian Roseanne gave up for adoption, and witnesses for such highly publicized cases as the O.J. Simpson murder trial and William Kennedy Smith's rape trial.

"Everybody leaves a paper trail," he says.

Culligan and a trio of other investigators, professional repossessors, collection agents and "skip tracers" (whose job it is to track those who "skip" out on their debts), will share their trade secrets for finding people -- or, at least, information about them -- as part of the Manhunt Seminars, a pair of day-long lectures on Wednesday and Thursday at the Monte Carlo hotel-casino.

Three of the four men are partners in the Manhunt Seminars, a company based in Las Vegas. The seminars have been conducted over four years in 25 cities (an abbreviated presentation was given at the MGM Grand in 1996 in conjunction with another company's convention).

Beginning next year, Manhunt's seminars will be hosted exclusively in Las Vegas once a month, and plans are to conduct them here twice-monthly starting in 2000.

A former Miami Beach fire department employee, Culligan got into the detective business a dozen years ago and has authored several books, including "You Too Can Find Anybody" (Hallmark Press, 1991) and "When In Doubt, Check Him Out" (1993). He joined the Manhunt team last year.

While he can track down just about anyone (or, more often, someone who knows knows them), people seeking Culligan's services may have trouble finding him -- in the telephone book, that is -- as he works strictly for the media and spent six years under contract with Paramount Studios.

His duties include collecting background information on celebrities and potential news figures, which is used for segments on such television shows as "Hard Copy" and "A Current Affair."

That's where data from his file on Paul Reubens, a k a Pee-Wee Herman, ended up. Culligan had a hunch the former standup comic and television star was headed for trouble prior to his arrest for exposing himself in 1991.

Through his research, Culligan uncovered a pair of 1971 arrests of Reubens and turned the information over to "A Current Affair." So, when news of his '91 arrest broke, the show scooped its tabloid TV competition.

"So many times, you watch TV (and wonder), 'Gee whiz, how did they get that (information) so fast when (a news event) only happened three hours ago?' " he says.

Not-so-secret files

That is Culligan's crew of former Secret Service and FBI agents at work. "I have people all over the place," he says, "that on a moment's notice can go out" and gather information, largely through public records such as driver's licenses, traffic tickets, obituaries and even dog licenses.

Attempting a records search through Nevada's Department of Motor Vehicles may prove tricky, though.

Like some other states, fees are charged for driver license and driving record, vehicle registration and title information. They are released in limited amounts after a records request application, as well as a signed affidavit, are sent to, and considered by the agency's office in Carson City.

Divorce records, which feature "child visitation schedules," are "an absolute sure-fire way to find somebody," Culligan says. "What we have is a place where we know (a person) is going to be at certain times on every alternate holiday ... It's as simple as that.

"It's just amazing; the (information) is there and nobody realizes it."

That's why Culligan informs audiences of Manhunt Seminars about the accessibility of such resources. "Why shouldn't people know (this information is) free? Why shouldn't people know that you can call a phone number and see if somebody's ever been arrested or put in federal prison?"

But should just anyone have access to such information? It's a question Sgt. Ted Snodgrass, of Metro Police's fugitive detail, ponders. "I think it all depends on who's looking for whom," he says.

"If you've got a crook looking for an average citizen, well, this is bad. If you've got somebody that's related to law enforcement, or looking for someone who has violated the law, well then, this is good."

Skip tracing is often used by financial institutions in search of people who have stopped paying on such things as car loans and have made themselves scarce.

In those situations, Snodgrass says, "why shouldn't a company be able to try to get their stuff back?" Admittedly, his feelings are mixed. "There's too many variables out there."

Finding families

While Culligan charges his media mogul clients (sometimes upwards of $70,000 a case), he's volunteered his services for seven years orchestrating thousands of heartwarming reunions-- a staple of TV talk shows -- on such programs as "Sally Jessy Raphael," "Leeza" and "The Montel Williams Show."

"I will tell you, Joe has never not come through with the goods," Mary Duffy, executive producer of "The Montel Williams Show," says. Culligan is "a regular contributor" to the show. "He's very careful to do the right homework.

"Very often, (the guests) are people who have lost phone numbers, lost addresses; they've moved 15 or 20 times," she explains. "I think he takes tremendous satisfaction when he sees the families come together."

One of the easiest ways to find a long-lost relative, Culligan says, is to send a letter containing the person's birth date and parents' names to the Social Security Administration, which will forward your correspondence to them.

"When I go on TV, I tell people that," he says. "People want to find people because they know they can do it; they know it's inexpensive."

And it's never been easier, according to Millard Land, a professional repossessor and skip tracer who has been in the business for three decades.

"The world has gotten so much smaller because of the Internet," 50-year-old Land, who will also speak at the Manhunt Seminars, says. His Houston-based company, Adjusters, Inc., has repossessed 17,000 vehicles nationwide.

Gauging the competition

When he first started in the early '70s, "I had plenty of work; there were not many people doing it. But now, there's a lot more competition. There are a lot more people who are licensed private detectives in each state, and there are a lot more people that (man) hunt for a living."

Especially creditors, he says. "They want to do it themselves in order to save money and they don't want to pay outside investigators to do that work," he explains.

Then there is the allure of the private eye business, as romanticized by Hollywood.

"Most everybody in the world watches television and ... they see private investigators hunt down people on these mystery shows," Land says.

"I think everybody secretly wants to be a James Garner (in "The Rockford Files")-type character or a 'Mannix' or something like that, so we get a lot of wannabes that show up at the (seminars)."

Other regular attendants include bail bondsmen, credit union representatives and aspiring genealogists looking for more efficient ways of tracing their family trees.

Between the speakers, about 500 information sources -- telephone numbers, street and e-mail addresses -- are distributed to seminar-goers.

Land specializes in, and lectures about the psychological side of man-hunting: how to interview and read people's eyes and voices, even what "language" their brain is speaking.

"If you're in one language and they're in another, you're going to have a difficult time having a conversation with them" and extrapolating information, he says. "If you know that, it gives you somewhat of an advantage on interviews."

Organization is also a key component of any search. "You can't jump into the middle of a rough case and find somebody," Land contends. "Unless you have a system and a routine (for researching information), you're not gonna find a high percentage of them."

Land, who initially opposed divulging his trade secrets to the public, hesitantly joined the Manhunt team several years ago, at the urging of H.C. Altes, a veteran recovery agent who is also a lecturer with the group.

"The things that you learn how to do in the process of hunting people you do not share with anyone. That was how I was raised in the business," he says. "But the climate has changed somewhat and I've changed a little bit as I've aged."

Still, man-hunting is not for everyone, he concedes. "No one sits on their grandfather's knee when they're 6 and says, 'I want to be a repossessor or a skip-tracer.' "

Usually, by seminar's end, Land says, "we get some people who say, 'I got exactly what I wanted out of it. I don't want to do it (for a living), but I've got what I need to do what I want to do.'

"A lot of people look at it like it's a dirty, slimy job and in a lot of ways, it is because you have to do some dirty, slimy things to find people who are criminally-oriented," he says. "It's just not as clean a deal as most people want to get involved in."

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